Hay's Way: The challenges rangers face in Scotland's busiest national park as summer season is set to begin

A helicopter swooped down to Loch Lomond, filling up a hanging bucket with the natural source to douse flames that ripped through vegetation leaving a blackened scar on the flanks of Cruach Tairbeirt — a hill associated with the Viking portage of longships in 1263.

The talk among local residents and businesses was telling. The suspected cause, a disposable barbecue, was discussed with little surprise, as though the incident was a standard.

If it wasn’t the smell of smoke in the air, it was from grilled food from clusters of tourists on the loch side or in the hills picnicking in the sun.

In Tarbet and Arrochar, villages at the foot of the burning hill, visitors arrived in their numbers, parking up in car parks recently developed to cater for ever increasing crowds. Extreme wildfire risk warnings were in place for the week, but it was clearly too late for the Cruach.

Police Scotland, I was told, increases patrols when the forecast is set to reach a certain temperature, a point on the thermometer that is colloquially known as “taps aff” weather. The reason being an increase in wildfires and damage occurring in the park, but also a noticeable rise in antisocial and reckless behaviour, which is also linked to an increase in booze intake. Many rural holiday areas around Scotland reported a sharp rise in more aggressive and disruptive behaviour since the Covid-19 lockdowns, but it is showing little to no sign of abating for some locations.

After several weeks walking and camping around Loch Lomond during Hay’s Way, I met with rangers tasked with managing the millions of visitors who descend on Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park each year.

One of the first things they told me was that within an hour’s drive of the bonnie banks lives 50 per cent of Scotland’s population.

“That gives you an idea of the sheer volume of visitors we have here,” said Jim Downie, a ranger manager who has been working in the national park for 25 years. Though it’s probably a bit more than that, he added.

In total, the park sees some 4.5million visitors a year, a figure not far off the entire population of Scotland. It’s also more than double the number of people visiting the Cairngorms National Park, which is more than twice the size geographically.

We discuss the benefits of the park and its ever increasing recreational activities for visitors. But it becomes clear safety of people and the impact of human behaviour on both landscape and communities is what dominates.

“The draw for the numbers is the water,” said Leigh Hamilton, another ranger manager and former skipper. But it’s also one the main dangers for visitors, she warns.

“I think there’s a perception from the public that the lochs are safer than the sea. That’s not the case.”

The pair tell me that most people visiting are unaware that the “lochs are as deep as the hills are high”, with the deepest part of Loch Lomond plummeting to some 630ft.

“It is the steep drop-offs from the shore that people don’t seem to know about,” Ms Hamilton said.

“It can go from 2ft to 20ft. If people are not swimmers and go one step further and they are in deep water, then cold water shock is effective and that has a major impact on ability to move limbs.”

A particularly high concentration of deaths - four - happened in Loch Lomond in 2021, leading to a ramping up of safety warnings and action plans. By-laws in the park now mean that rangers can escort people off the loch if they are not wearing a life jacket.

But with increasing crowds come a revolving door of fresh problems depending on societal trends. The rangers mentioned a recent, growing problem of inexperienced paddleboarders having to be rescued. By failing to check wind speed and direction, an increasing number find themselves being swept across the loch and left with no option but to call 999 for rescue if the charity lifeboat doesn’t catch them first.

‘Polite littering’ is a new term I learned, which is when visitors bag up their rubbish but then leave it for ‘collection’ without factoring in wind, seagulls, foxes and whatever other creature might make a feast out of it.

One emerging — and curious — trend I both witnessed and heard about was the growing number of hookah pipes turning up in litter collections. Though such finds appear to raise few eyebrows among seasoned rangers. They have seen a lot.

As a rambler ranging Scotland, I have been surprised at the amount of litter I’ve come across on the bonnie banks compared to other places I’ve walked. It might be an obvious problem to highlight. But visiting the loch this time round, I think back to my stop off at the statue of Tom Weir in Balmaha and think about what the late mountaineer, a man who strongly advocated for access to the outdoors, would think of how much damage and disruption goes on in this stunning location.

For the rangers, they say a solution is changing behaviour.

The 20-strong permanent team and 50 or so seasonal employees who are taken on each year continue to roam the national park working on face-to-face communication.

“I tell the seasonal rangers that their strongest tool in the box is their passion for nature,” Mr Downie said.

“If they can pass that on, even in a small way, that will help slowly change behaviour. We see it happen. Ultimately they need to be more people people than anything else.”

But the rangers also assure that early indications of looking at how effective the by-laws have been ten years on suggest promising results.

“If anything, I think we would get more push back if we did away with them than to keep them in place,” Mr Downie said.

I sensed a bit of resistance to suggestion of tightening rules further. While looking back over at the blackened hilltop and hearing about the problems that still exist, and in some cases worsened, I did wonder if more robust protection for nature is needed.